Field of the Invention
The subject of this invention is a method to measure the movements of a person wearing a portable detector.
Discussion of the Background
There is a very wide variety of prior art for measuring heart or other signals using a detector that is attached to a patient. Movement sensors such as accelerometers have thus been proposed to monitor movements of the thorax cage and to deduce the heart rate from these movements. However, this type of detector has been reserved for particular conditions or postures of the patient; in general, a lack of effort or movement is necessary to give a reliable measurement, that is not confused by components from sources other than the movement signal, and that could be preponderant due to the small amplitude of movements originating from the heart.
Movement sensors at various locations of the body have also been applied to monitor persons wearing the detector and sometimes to determine a state of sleep, a fall, etc. The complexity of postures and levels of human activity makes a real analysis of the activity difficult when using usual detectors, which are reserved particularly for the detection of a single type of event and are programmed to ignore other events, as far as possible.